Barbara Safran is serving as president of the Contra Costa Association of Realtors during a year of turmoil in the East Bay housing market.

The market, already challenged, saw a decline in foreclosures that took away one of the key sources of homes for sale. At the same time, buyers began turning out in large numbers for the first time in years.

The buyers are driven by low interest rates, low home prices and renewed confidence in the economy.

But many potential sellers are staying on the sidelines because they remain underwater on their mortgages; and while the economy is improving, many homeowners still don’t have enough confidence in the recovery to risk selling their home and moving up. Prices are increasing, but there aren’t enough homes for sale to meet the demand.

In an interview with this newspaper, Safran looks at the past three quarters and tells us what she sees ahead.

Q: You’ve been president of the Contra Costa Association of Realtors during a tough year, but now as it begins to draw to a close, is the housing market improving a bit?

A: It’s been an interesting year. It started out with very low sales, which increased to a record high by the end of August. It’s a little slower in September, but not too much. I think that as long as the economy doesn’t fall away, we’ll continue to see an increase in the number of homes that get put on the market.

Q: Still, Contra Costa County is lagging parts of the Bay Area, like Silicon Valley, in recovering. Why is that?

A: We don’t have the technology business that Silicon Valley has, and that’s a key factor. Our unemployment rate is about 9 percent, which is good compared to what it had been, but it’s still high.

Q: Are there different “recoveries” going on? More in some places than others?

A: We have only local markets. We have a different market in Concord than in Walnut Creek. It really depends on whether you’ve got any jobs there. Often teachers and professors move to Lafayette. With them, you’re not going to have the kind of fluctuation in the marketplace that you have in a place like Concord, where a lot of people are working class.

Q: Realtors are complaining a lot about inventory these days. What’s behind that?

A: We have a seller’s market. We have half of the inventory that we had at the same time last year. The average days on market has declined from 45 days in October 2011 to 23 days in September, and the number of multiple offers ranges from five to 20 on one listing.

Q: Who are these offers coming from?

A: People of all kinds. Buyers who have cash. FHA buyers. If somebody has cash they are more likely to get the offer than anyone else, but we’re getting people from everywhere.

Q: That kind of competition must be hard on someone buying their first home.

A: It’s very hard. I have had buyers who have made four and five offers on different homes without getting one. It’s especially difficult for the first-time buyer. It takes longer, but it can be done. They have to be persistent about it and hang in there.

Q: Foreclosures are dropping off. How is that affecting sales?

A: I see that as a positive. The foreclosure market kept the prices depressed. Without the foreclosures, more people who want to sell their homes simply to move up, parallel move or move down are going to be more likely to do that.

Q: What will help normalize the market?

A: We need people to step up and sell homes, but until people are sure the economy is going to remain stable, we are not going to see that. People also don’t know what to do if their home is worth less than their mortgage — whether to pursue a short sale, renegotiate their loan or move toward a foreclosure. A Realtor would be able to provide them with valuable information about the range of options they have. And the other reason is that, given a fluctuating economy, a lot of homeowners are reluctant to move up. There are still really very few of those.

Q: How important are they to a healthy market?

A: Very important. Traditionally, the average amount of time a homebuyer would stay in a home was about five years. I believe it has now moved up to almost 10 years. In central Contra Costa County, there’s not a whole lot of land left to build new homes, so our market really does depend on movement within the homes that are there. I am sure that once the word gets out that we are selling the homes we have, that buyers are out there and that interest rates are lower than ever, more sellers will step up.

Contact Pete Carey at 408-920-5419.

Barbara Safran

Born: New YorkJobs: Clinical social worker Washington, D.C., and California, 1963 to present; Realtor 1998 to present, Land of Gold Realty, Walnut CreekEducation: Bachelor’s degree, Queens College, New York; master’s, Bryn Mawr School for Social Research, PennsylvaniaOrganizations: President, Contra Costa Association of Realtors; Women’s Council affiliate of the National Association of Realtors Family: Three adult children and five grandchildren

Five things you didn’t know about Barbara Safran

1. Her first career was as a clinical social worker, and she still maintains a small private practice.2. She created a counseling department at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. 3. She lost her home in the Berkeley-Oakland fire.4. She loves to travel, cook, sing, do photography, read and take in the theater.5. She once stood on a Greek restaurant table and danced.